“Tenants are a majority and it’s time we had a mayor who acted like it,” says Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner in New York City’s mayoral race.

When Mamdani says it, believe him: If he wins, tenants will be favored, and homeowners will be in his crosshairs.

Among other painful promises, Mamdani is vowing to fully enforce Local Law 97, a law that clobbers condo and co-op owners with costly mandates to comply with climate zealots’ stringent carbon-emission demands.

That will slap huge cost increases on middle-class and working-class New Yorkers who saved to buy co-ops or condos in large apartment complexes.   

More than 1 million New Yorkers — cops, teachers, accountants, retirees — own the 832,000 units impacted by Local Law 97, and many could soon face budget-breaking expenses.  

The City Council’s law, passed in 2019, sets a 2030 deadline for large residential buildings to reduce their carbon emissions by 40%.

That means owners must soon start the costly construction process to convert from oil-burner heating and gas stoves to all-electric heat and appliances, in the name of climate improvement.

The price tag for that will be staggering.

For example, co-op owners at Queensview, a 14-building complex in Long Island City built in 1950, have been told the conversion will cost them $62 million, boosting their monthly maintenance by $1,155 for a one-bedroom apartment. That’s about double.

Owners who can’t afford the increase may be forced to sell — and at fire-sale prices, since their neighbors will be struggling with the same hikes.

Mamdani vows to rigorously enforce this lunatic law, expressly opposing what he calls “loopholes” like letting owners buy renewable-energy credits or offering time extensions to comply. 

His website mentions assistance “for middle income homeowners” — but he’s never followed up with any specifics.

Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa opposes Local Law 97, posting on X that the law is “forcing longtime New Yorkers out of their apartments they’ve lived in for decades. The cost is just too high, especially in a housing crisis.”

Candidate Andrew Cuomo has said he’s open to modifying the law, but that would require the City Council to go along — a big maybe.

Alternatively, the next mayor could slow-walk enforcement. Unless our next mayor is Mamdani.

Here’s the biggest outrage: Local Law 97 takes a million or more modest New York homeowners to the cleaners to pay for a scheme that offers no demonstrable benefit to the city’s air quality, and does nothing to improve residents’ health.

Zero.

City Council members should have examined the facts before issuing these mandates.

It’s nothing short of legislative malpractice: Left-wing climate ideologues are happy to spend other people’s money without asking if their plan makes a lick of sense.

A February report from experts at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and its School of Global Public Health demonstrates the scientific farce of Local Law 97. 

Its authors, themselves climate activists, caution that the benefits of the law “may only materialize in future generations — and only if similarly ambitious policies are embraced worldwide.”

They add there’s “scant literature” demonstrating any health benefits from Local Law 97.

Worse yet, while the co-ops and condos are being forced to convert from fossil-fuel heating to electric heat, they’ll be buying that electricity from suppliers who . . . generate it with fossil fuels.  

“Building electrification is unlikely to yield net benefit without a transition to renewable energy services” citywide, the NYU scientists write — something the city is nowhere near accomplishing.  

Message to condo and co-op owners: You are getting shafted.

The climate ideologues pushing Local Law 97 didn’t bother to get the facts.

With Mamdani vowing to “fulfill the vision of Local Law 97,” as he says in his official platform, homeowners facing financial stress and worse should vote in their own best interests.

This November they should cast their ballots for anybody but Mamdani — and vote against any City Council member who supported the 2019 law, while they’re at it.

If they do, they could swing the mayoral race.

New York City’s co-op and condo owners likely number more than 1 million voters.  

The question is, who will turn up at the polls: These homeowners, or the 1.7 million tenants eager for Mamdani’s promised rent freeze. 

“Middle-income co-op owners slammed by Local Law 97 can turn this election,” predicts Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf.

Protecting the earth against climate damage and preparing New York City for future floods and storms are worthy goals.

But Mamdani and the extremists pushing to enforce Local Law 97 ignore the facts —and treat New York’s homeowners with utter disrespect.

It’s not a slight they should forget.  

Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of SAVENYC.org.